phila*craft

part of an intarsia panel from Elio's Mason-Dixon Knitting keepsake blanket

Flanked by Kay and Ann on THE keepsake blanket knit by three friends from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book is Philadelphia artist, crafter and font of wisdom Cheryl Klimaszewski. Cheryl placed the "xo" with which she has known me to sign all my letters in the center of her panel. You can see more of her work on her site called one hand laughing.

A fellow parent at my son's school volunteered to make painting smocks for the children of a Waldorf Kindergarten in Haifa. She asked me to embroider a few images to embellish the smocks. Here are two I did today.

a wallhanging for my son's room
Inspired by Petra Berger's must-have book Felt Craft, I began this wallhanging for my son's room...in 2000. I planned to mount it in an open shadow box and make felt-decorated wooden figures that could play in the nighttime scene. I never got around to mounting the piece and the little figures were played with in other ways. Now my son is eight and his current interest in insects had me looking at the background in a new way when I came across it in my felt stash a week ago. I wet felted pale green roving using a bamboo sushi rolling mat and when the felt was dry, I needled it to a piece of off-white Holland felt. With Bruno's DK Butterflies and Moths field guide in hand, I used DMC Perle cotton and stranded floss to outline the wings. I needle felted the body between the wings and used multi-colored silk thread for the wing veins (that was the one bit of fantasia I was allowed by my son who wanted the moth to look realistic). I cut the moth out, stitched it in place and used a feather stitch to make the antennae. With two little buttonhole loops and two lightweight 3M Command adhesive hooks applied to the back, it's finally out of the UFO zone and on the wall.

needlework in the service of rock 'n roll






During a clean-up at my mom's house this summer I found the jean jacket I embellished for my brother David over 20 years ago. It's all there: bleaching, quilting, embroidery, applique.

My friend Amy Repp is an immensely talented amateur potter. She threw and glazed these two bowls for me which, in their shape, are homages to potter Lucie Rie.

where I keep my embroidery supplies and tools
A fellow parent at my son's school led the parent handwork group through making sewing boxes. We bought the boxes at AC Moore or Michael's, knocked out the horsey (thanks to Martha of naive knitting for that richly descriptive word) tapestry padded tops and made our own using 6 count cross stitch canvas, DMC Perle cotton, and our own designs.
Since I can't find a paddle that would fit into the box, I use short cuts of magnolia branches to keep my Perle cotton organized.

wine bottle gift wrap
















I wanted to include recipes for the Bellini (one third white peach juice to two thirds Prosecco) and for sgroppino with this bottle of Prosecco that I was giving to a friend; I hit on the idea of writing the recipes on heavy origami paper that I wrapped with colored glassine and fastened to the bottle with a finger knitted cord. Salute!

a marionette lamb

The class of 2007 and the handwork teacher at my son's school put together a kit and pattern for this lamb complete with slubby cream wool for the body and brown worsted for the nose and legs. Each part of the animal is made from a square knitted patch sewn together along two opposite sides and then drawn together at each end after stuffing. The nose is formed by knitting the last quarter of the head square in brown. The legs each have a marble stuffed down at the bottom to give the puppet weight. The head is not firmly sewn to the body so that the puppeteer can make the lamb nod and graze. Fishing line is tied to the head and hindquarters and to the ends of a short branch.